By Mona Darwish
The Orange County Register
FULLERTON, Calif. — Escalating costs and concern over anti-competitive practices in the custom fire engine industry are at the center of a complaint filed by the city of Fullerton with the California Attorney General’s Office.
Fullerton Mayor Fred Jung said the city’s complaint filed this month was made on behalf of “every municipality in the country that has a fire department” and has struggled in recent years to afford and get in a timely manner fire engines in an age of industry monopolization.
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“We had authorized it, budgeted it out, and years later, not only do we not have the fire engine… we haven’t even been able to order it,” Jung said of Fullerton’s most recent experience trying to purchase new equipment, adding, “What we budgeted for that fire apparatus three years ago is no longer what it costs now in 2025.”
In 2019, the city purchased a fire engine for about $751,000, with a build time of roughly two years. However, by 2023, the cost of two engines rose to $1.2 million each, and the estimated delivery time stretched from two years to four.
For many municipalities, it’s not uncommon to opt for custom-built fire engines that meet their specific needs, city officials said, whether for wildland or commercial-heavy regions or tighter downtown streets shaped by historic roads and buildings.
The issue, as the city sees it, is the consolidation of manufacturers, said Fullerton Fire Chief Adam Loeser. “It really has created a bottleneck as these private equity firms have gobbled up some of these smaller companies and, at the same time, there’s been an elimination of manufacturing facilities.”
Considered an all-hazard fire department, the Fullerton Fire Department serves about 143,000 residents with a fleet of 10 fire engines operating out of six stations.
The National Fire Protection Association recommends a 15-year lifespan for engines on the frontline before they are moved to reserve status, and suggests vehicles over 25 years be retired. The extended delivery timelines have forced Fullerton’s Fire Department to rely on engines older than the recommended shelf life, Loesser said.
And the more years in service, the more mileage the vehicles rack up, requiring more maintenance, officials said. According to Loeser, four of the city’s 10 engines have more than 200,000 miles, with a fifth logging more than 300,000 miles.
“Our equipment is safe, but it’s costing us way more than we budgeted to keep it that way,” Jung said. “These engines continue to age, they go past their viable life, and we continue to ad-hoc and fix them so they remain safe. This is a very substantial concern for me.”
Loeser credited the city’s Public Works Department with doing a “fantastic job” of keeping the engines in service. The bigger issue, he said, is obtaining parts for older vehicles and dealing with designated service providers for specialized equipment.
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“The high prices and the long build times don’t just affect Fullerton. This is something felt across every fire department and every city in the United States, and everybody is feeling it at the same time,” he said.
Similar concerns have prompted legal action by the city of La Crosse, Wisconsin, which filed a 66-page class action lawsuit in August against three major fire apparatus manufacturers and the Fire Apparatus Manufacturers Association, alleging anti-competitive practices. Calls to the association were not returned.
Labor unions and watchdogs have also raised alarms.
In May, the International Association of Firefighters accused one private equity firm of “aggressively consolidating” two dozen or so fire apparatus and emergency vehicle manufacturers into its holding company over the last decade.
In a joint letter with the American Economic Liberties Project, the group urged the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission to investigate “consolidation in fire and emergency vehicle manufacturers,” arguing that three have come to dominate two-thirds of the U.S. market. The letter references the wildfires in Los Angeles this January, saying “more than 100 of the Los Angeles Fire Department’s 183 fire trucks were reportedly out of service,” likely contributing to the losses.
“This is not a partisan (issue) at all,” Jung said. “There is something very wrong with what’s happening in this industry.”
City leaders and fire agencies in Southern California have shared similar experiences anecdotally, and Jung said he hopes the Attorney General’s Office will use its resources to intervene and address concerns.
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